EUROPEAN LITERATURE

Matt Joyce
3rd Period
Ms. Munley

Table of Contents

Renaissance 1485- 1680

Enlightenment 1650- 1800
Romanticism 1798 1870
Realism 1820-1920
Victorian Period 1837- 1901
Modernism 1910 1965
Post-Modernism 1965- Present

Renaissance

The creation of the printing press by Johannes Guttenberg

in 1440 allowed for much of the literature during this time
to be read by a much larger audience.
With the new wave of knowledge, many writers of this
time period drew on classical methods and styles from the
ancient greats. These included Aristotle, Homer, Plato,
and Socrates. Some Romans that were modeled were
Cicero, Horace, Sallust, and Virgil.
Politics were often an influence on Renaissance literature.
Some writers wrote directly about politics, and gave
advice to rulers, seen by Niccolo Machiavellis famous
work, The Prince.
Another source of inspiration was Christianity, which had
immense influence during this time.

Important Renaissance
Works

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet
Niccolo Michiavelli, The Prince
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
Petrarch, Canzoniere, Trionf
Sir Francis Bacon, New Atlantis
Sir Thomas More, Utopia
John Milton, Paradise Lost
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus

The Enlightenment Period

This period in literature is marked by new emphasis on logic

and intellectualism
Writers put more attention to useful rather than abstract
thought, and expressed desires for improving the conditions
of humanity through tolerance, freedom, and equality.
With the reason of reason and logic, many writers began to
question the established churches of the time, and a rise of
deism was seen during this time.
The philsophes in France during this time were important to
the period and contributed many new thoughts
characteristic of the Enlightenment.
The rising middle class during this time made their
preferences of prose novels and short stories significant
literary genres.

Works of the
Enlightenment

Montesqueiu, Spirit of the Laws

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Marry Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Voltaire, Candide
Denis Diderot, Encyclopedie

Romanticism

This period was a movement away from the

enlightenment focus of reason and logic, focusing more
on imagination and emotions instead.
Key characteristics of this period include an interest in the
common man and childhood, emotions and feelings, the
awe of nature, emphasis on the individual, myths, and the
importance of the imagination.
Symbolism was seen as superior because they could
suggest many things instead of the direct interpretations
of allegories
Instead of the scientific view of the universe as a
machine, romanticism saw it as organic, such as a living
tree.

Romantic authors

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads
Friedrich Schlegel, Lucinde
Lord Byron, Childe Harolds Pilgrimage
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
Sir Walter Scott, Tales of the Crusaders
Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship
Chateaubriand, Genius of Christianity
Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind

Realism

The realist movement portrayed the hypocrisy, brutality,

and dullness of life for the bourgeois.
Scientific objectivity and observation were used to
influence literature during the period of realism.
Realism often confronted readers with the harsh realities
that life had to offer.
This movement rejected the idealization of nature, the
poor, love, and polite society during the romantic period
and instead showed the dark side of life.
Some writers portrayed the cruelty of the developing
industrialism in Europe during this time.

Realist writers

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Henrik Ibsen, A Dolls House
George Benard Shaw, Mrs. Warrens Profession
Charles Dickens, The Adventures of Oliver Twist
Claude Bernard, Introduction to the Study of Experimental
Science
Emile Zola, LAssommoir
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Victorian Period

The Victorian Period showed a much more sober view of

idealism than the visionary view seen in Romanticism.
The Victorian saw nature as harsh and cruel, contrasting
the kind and harmonious view during the Romantic era.
Some focuses of this era were the middle class, reality,
work, and nations as a whole instead of the individual.
The trinity of the Victorian period was religion, science
and morality.
Some of the values were earnestness, respectability,
utilitarianism, and a strong emphasis on duty.
Major ideas of this period of literature included the
glorification of war, expansion of empires, industrialism,
economic prosperity, and reform.

Victorian Period writers

Robert Browning
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
George Eliot
Elizabeth Barret Browning
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Thomas Hardy
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
Matthew Arnold
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Anthony Trollope, Chronicles of Barsetshire
Lord Alfred Tennyson

Modernism

Like the period of Realism, Modernism was also critical of

middle class society and morality, but wasnt concerned
by social issues like Realism was.
Modernism was characterized as having a concern for the
aesthetic and beautiful.
Many English writers challenged the values of the
Victorian time period.
While it arose before World War I, it would flourish after it
because of the immense turmoil and social problems it
created.
Experimentation and individualism become virtues, while
they had been discouraged in the past.
This period was marked by quick and unexpected shifts
from traditional ways of viewing the world.

Modernist writers

Virginia Woolf, A Room of Ones Own

Leonard Woolf
James Joyce, Ulysses
Franz Kafka
William Butler Yeats, The Tower
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
D. H. Lawrence
Alfred Doblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz
Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Postmodernism

Postmodernism developed after World War II and utilized

techniques such as fragmentation, paradox, and
questionable narrators
This was a reaction against Enlightenment ideas that were
seen in literature from Modernism
Postmodernism tended to stray from the neatly tied-up
ending in modernism, and celebrated chance over craft.
Questioning of the distinctions between low and high
culture through a jumble of various ingredients, known as
pastiche, that before wasnt seen as appropriate for
literature
Metafiction was also often employed to undermine the
writers authority

Postmodernist works

Vladimir Nabokov, Mother Night

John Fowles, The French Lieutenants Woman
Venedikt Erofeev, Moscow-Petushki
Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
George Perec, Life: A Users Manual
Italo Calvino, If on a winters night a traveler
Alasdair Gray, Lanark: A Life in Four Books
Alan Moore, Watchmen
Dmitry Galkovsky, The Infnite Deadlock
Umberto Eco, Foucaults Pendulum
Walter Abish, How German Is It

Works Cited

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